We Speak To BBC MotoGP Presenter Matt Roberts

by Mark

Sitting in the hotel bar at a little before 10am on a Tuesday morning seems a strange thing to be doing.

I’m sat waiting for Matt Roberts, he’s not late, just that I’m early.

Whilst I’ve some thinking time my mind wanders to who this man is. Ten years in MotoGP and yet we hardly know a thing about him.

Where has he come from? Where has his love of motorcycling come from?

And then the man himself appears and with a firm hand-shake immediately heads to the bar offering to buy us a drink. I choose coffee (it’s early and I’ve not had one yet) and immediately regret the decision as Matt prompts for a healthy water.

He’s obviously a man who looks after himself and his appearance and he’s a handsome looking bloke, a ‘face-for-telly’ as they say.

Matt isn’t promoting anything, he’s in London to do some filming for the American Football games before the Superbowl, and we’ve collared him whilst he’s away from his home town of Huddersfield.

Whilst chatting he manages to put you straight at ease with his easy air and wry-smile. He’s funny too and has some great stories, you get the feeling he’d be a great friend, a thoroughly nice man.

SOTB: How did you get into journalism? Did you study it at all?

MR: No I didn’t, well yeah I did [laughs]. I did a degree in Spanish and communication arts, which is basically media studies, at Huddersfield University where I’m from.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do at that point but I knew I wanted to do Spanish as I’d done languages for A-level so I was keen to carry that on.

And then, when I was about to do my final exams, I decided that I wanted to go into TV.

I entered a competition to go into a TV program called ‘e-trippers’ which was on Rapture TV.

This was in the same year that Big Brother was first making an appearance and the people who were going for Big Brother were also going for ‘e-trippers’.

The premise of the program was two people together and you had to travel around the world together. Each pick a city in the world where you want to go and a reason why and then you travel from one persons chosen place to the second persons chosen place.

I picked Buenos Aires, because I wanted to go and see Boca Juniors play, and the guy they put me with wanted to go to San Francisco to check out the gay scene.

They were being a bit naughty really trying to put the archetypal Northern football fan with someone who was the opposite.

So, they sent us to San Francisco and it was really cool, we spent two months travelling from San Francisco all the way down to Buenos Aires. Because I was doing that I missed my finals (exams) but luckily the university let me take them when I came back.

I thought, or I think I thought, that this show had, had like five million viewers a week while we were away and I came back and Rapture were all positive and saying “we’re going to get you an agent” and this, that and the other. I was thinking that a future in TV beckoned.

The next thing there was nothing. I was living at home with my mum. I was on the dole and I was thinking that I might have to re-think this.

As it happens I saw an advert for Dorna (MotoGP rights owners) who were looking for an in-house English journalist.

By that time I knew I wanted to get into TV but I wanted to get into sport which was my main thing. I’d watched Grand Prix motorcycles quite a lot, especially when I took a year out as part of my degree when I was living in Spain which was 1999, which was the year (Alex) Criville won it which was big news in Spain. So I’d watched a lot of it then, so I kinda knew what it was about.

So, and this was about a month or six weeks after I’d got back from South America, I went out there and had the interview and they called me on the Friday and said “can you come to Brazil next week for a trial run”.

So I went down to Brazil, which was the race were Kenny Roberts Junior won the title in 2000, Valentino Rossi won the race, it was only his second win in 500’s. It went well and two weeks after that I moved to Barcelona.

SOTB: So were you writing the press releases for Dorna?

MR: Yeah, so as an international company they needed English speakers so I was writing press release, the website was just starting up and so I was writing all the content for that as well.

Dorna were also experimenting with things like mobile etc and so I was involved in the content for that as well.

After a year, so I was only 23 or 24, they asked me to do their World feed commentary with Nick Harris and Dennis Noyes. So I moved into the commentary box then.

It was absolutely perfect for me because there wasn’t a lot of pressure on me but working with someone really experienced like Nick I was just able to learn the ropes really. It was absolutely perfect for me, I loved it, absolutely loved it.

SOTB: So when did the BBC thing start?

MR: What happened was; the BBC picked up highlights in 2004 and because it was just highlights they used the world feed commentary which was us. That was cool, here I was on the BBC, it was perfect.

Then in 2005, they (BBC) decided to do them live and Suzi (Perry) asked the producer if they could somehow get a pit-lane reporter in, but budgets were tight.

So when Suzi had asked for a pit-lane reporter, the BBC just went to Dorna and said ‘look as part of the package that we pay for the rights, could we take Gavin Emmett as the pit-lane reporter’.

So they did a deal for that, we got a different pit-lane reporter in, and Gav would literally change from his Dorna shirt, half an hour before they went onto air, into his BBC shirt.

So for the first year it was Gav that was doing it, then, at the end of that year, Gav was doing really well at Dorna, he was really highly thought of, he was doing much better than I was, he’d quickly overtaken me [laughs]! He then got offered a job as the Director of Communications for Dorna, which was an amazing job to be offered and one that he obviously felt he couldn’t turn down.

We talked about it a lot, we used to room together at the time – in fact we lived together in Spain – and he was like ‘look what do you think?’ and as it turned out, we both realised that if he took the job then a position would become available for me to do the pit-lane stuff.

So I was like ‘take it, take it’ [laughs] no I wasn’t, I wasn’t, I tried to be objective, and we talked about it a lot and he decided that was what he wanted to do and so he took the job.

By that point I’d actually just gone freelance myself in Spain. I’d quit Dorna and all I was doing for Dorna then was commentaries, that was it. I was freelance within the paddock but I was also trying to expand my portfolio in Spain, I was doing a bit of football writing, I was working for the World Series by Renault and a few other things like that.

I had to go back to Dorna then, 9-5, and work in the office just for the opportunity to do the pit-lane stuff for the BBC.

SOTB: So how long were you working for Dorna but the BBC then?

MR: I worked for Dorna solidly from the end of 2000 until the end of 2004 and then I decided I wanted to do other things as well, so I effectively quit Dorna and offered my services back to them as a commentator which they accepted, which was 2005.

So for 2006-2007 I was working for the BBC through Dorna but I was actually freelance.

Then at the end of 2007, myself and my wife, who’s been with me ever since before I started at Dorna, we’ve been together since we we’re 18, she’s put up with a lot, she lived with me in Spain and I was travelling to all the races which was pretty tough on her. Anyway we decided we wanted to move back to England and so I went to the Beeb and said I’ve been doing this for two years through Dorna and it’s not really that convenient anymore as I want to move back to England and so is there anyway we can do a contract directly between ourselves. They said yes and so I moved back in December and signed a contract in January to do 2008 directly for the Beeb and so that was the first year that I worked directly for them.

SOTB: So there wasn’t necessarily an interest in bikes before you started? I mean, do you ride now?

MR: I do ride now yeah, I didn’t ride when I took the job, I’d never ridden at all, I’d never sat on a motorcycle I don’t think. As far as I’m concerned that wasn’t really that important to the job itself, I still don’t think it is still that important to the job, it’s more about – especially presenting, not so much commentating, but definitely presenting – it’s more about getting stuff out of people that are around you then imparting any kind of wisdom or first-hand experience yourself.

But the commentating was and I was aware of that when I first started doing the commentary, I grew up playing football and I feel I can tell if the presenter has never played football. So I thought I needed to get some kind of grasp of what these guys are going through so I decided to write a book.

My plan for this book, which I still think is a good idea (and so do we, and we told Matt so!), was to learn every discipline of motorcycling, because I’d made so many contacts by then, with top teachers and then build up and then race in the BMW Boxer Cup.

Because a lot of different riders come from different backgrounds, so some MotoGP riders started off in trials, some started off in motocross, some started off in mini-bikes and so I was interested to see what ways those different educations affected them as riders when they’re older.

So I’d made really good friends with Randy Mamola as he worked for Dorna, his deal with Eurosport was similar to my deal with the BBC, and I actually ended up moving just round the corner from Randy and we used to spend a lot of time together and he taught me to ride on a little Honda 100 XR.

SOTB: That’s a pretty good teacher!

MR [laughing]: Yeah it’s not bad, not bad, and I was learning with his little lad as well, Dakota, who’s now racing in 125’s and he was like five at the time and I was like 25 and we’d be out riding together and learning together.

So I did that with Randy, and then I went out to America with him and Jeremy McWilliams and their family over Christmas and went to Kenny’s ranch in California and I rode like three days dirt-track with Kenny Roberts, Randy Mamola and Jeremy McWilliams which is just like…ridiculous, just a totally surreal few days. It still feels stupid now when I say it.

So I learned to dirt-track, not very well, but you know. And then I went to Ron Haslams race school at Donnington and did some time there on track, I rode trials with Dougie Lampkin - when I was working freelance in Spain I did quite a bit of work for the indoor trials championship and got to know Dougie quite well – and so I went and did some trials riding with him. Did some motocross with Jamie Dobb, who I’d met working for Dorna as well.

SOTB: That’s not bad at all!

MR: Yeah it’s not bad is it. The problem was, it got to the stage were I realised that I was either going to have to give up my job to get to the stage were I could race. Even in the BMW Boxer Cup, these guys are so good, they’re not Grand Prix riders but they’re still beyond anything we could ever imagine doing.

I remember one night speaking to Jeremy McWilliams about it and he was like ‘listen, unless you give up your job and dedicate yourself 100% to doing this you’ve got no chance, don’t even bother’.

So, I’ve got loads of material written from that but I never really got round to finishing the project.

SOTB: I think it would be great, you should finish it.

MR: Yeah it would be wouldn’t it? I kind of though even if I come last it would still make a good book. Maybe it’s something I’ll pick up at a later date, I’ve still got it all there.

So, anyway, I can ride now yeah, I’ve got a house and got married and everything and eventually got round to doing my licence last year.

SOTB: Have you got a bike?

MR: No I’ve borrowed a Multistrada off my cousin. I love it, I love being on a motorbike. I’m definitely going to get my own bike, don’t know what yet, but this summer I’m going to try as many as I can.

SOTB: Do you keep up with World Superbikes as well?

MR: Yes absolutely, I mean like I said, I wouldn’t say that Grand Prix motorcycle racing was my number one sport before I started in it, I’m the first to hold my hands up there, but it’s something that I totally fell in love with when I started working in it and it’s one of those sports, like every sport, the more you know about it the more you’re able to enjoy it because you’re you understand the context of it and obviously the technical intricacies of it and things like that.

So I’m totally into bike racing of every kind now, I mean it’s not always ideal when I come home on one of my weekends off and I sit on a Sunday afternoon watching two World Superbike races from Brno, it doesn’t go down to well [he says laughing], but I record them and watch them all.

You can see Matt’s predictions for the forthcoming season here and pit yourself against him.

We’d like to thank Matt for his time. We spoke for a while and so have split the interview, the second part of which will be online soon.